Five questions for the Stanley Cup final

NHL playoffs 2012: Five questions for the Stanley Cup final

The National Post’s Bruce Arthur poses five questions about the Stanley Cup matchup between the Los Angeles Kings and the New Jersey Devils

1. Can the Kings contain New Jersey’s Ilya Kovalchuk?
Los Angeles has not faced anybody like Ilya Kovalchuk in these playoffs — Vancouver was without leading scorer Daniel Sedin, and his brother Henrik is more of a tactician; St. Louis and Phoenix were fine ensemble pieces, but neither team featured anything resembling an offensive star. But New Jersey’s US$100-million Russian winger has been a force in his first extended playoff run, leading all playoff scorers with 18 points in 17 games. He can be physical, is bigger than you think, and should be a constant threat.

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2. Can Martin Brodeur, with three Cup rings, do it again?
All the questions before the Eastern Conference final came down to the same theme: How in the world will Martin Brodeur match up with Vezina and Hart nominee Henrik Lundqvist, who recorded two shutouts in the first three games of the series? Well, Brodeur muddled through somehow, allowing two goals or fewer in all but one game, and now faces the only goaltender in hockey who could claim to have had a better season than Lundqvist. Jonathan Quick’s numbers loom: a .944 save percentage, a 1.54 goals-against, a 12-2 record. One factor: Given New Jersey’s fierce forecheck, Quick will be forced to handle the puck a lot. That’s Brodeur’s specialty.

3. Will bigger be better for Los Angeles?
It’s not that the Devils are small, precisely — it’s that the Kings are loaded with moose-like men up front in Dustin Penner (6-foot-4, 242 pounds) Dwight King (6-3, 234), Anze Kopitar (6-3, 225). Add in the fact that Mike Richards plays much bigger than his 5-foot-11, 199-pound frame, and Dustin Brown plays like he is a human wrecking ball, and this is a team with more productive size up front than anybody the Devils have faced to this point. New Jersey’s defence is not small — Bryce Salvador, Anton Volchenkov, and Mark Fayne all top 215 pounds — but it is going to be outsized.

4. Can the Devils take the special of out L.A.’s special teams?
The Kings have the second-best penalty kill in the playoffs, at a murderously efficient 91.2%; the Devils are far less homicidal when it comes to special teams, at 74.2%. The Kings have scored five short-handed goals already in these playoffs; the Devils have already allowed two. New Jersey was the better team 5-on-5 for most of the East final against New York; they lost Games 1 and 3 in large part due to giving the Rangers power-play opportunities. One of these teams should be afraid of putting men in the box.

5. Which offensive stars will come out each night?
New Jersey’s top two lines have switched dance partners in these playoffs, but the basics are Zach Parise-Travis Zajac-Dainius Zubrus and Patrik Elias-Adam Henrique-Ilya Kovalchuk, with the fourth line of Ryan Carter-Stephen Gionta-Steve Bernier scoring nine rather unexpected goals. Los Angeles, which finished 29th in scoring during the regular season, has gotten production from the lines of Brown-Kopitar-Justin Williams and Penner-Richards-Jeff Carter. Neither of these defensive corps have an Erik Karlsson — although Drew Doughty is a pretty good name to start with — so the top-end guys will have to produce like top-end guys. Radical, I know.